A new report sees few reasons for optimism in the U.S. agricultural sector, pointing to the global slowdown impacting demand, the continued trade war with China and flooding in the nation’s farm belt. “U.S. agriculture will face challenges in 2019 as slowing domestic and global economic growth rates, trade talks continue and weather casts uncertainty in the short- and long-term markets, ” the latest quarterly rural economic review from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange division said.According to CoBank, U.S. commodity markets remain focused on negotiations between U.S. [node:read-more:link]

The western highlands, which extend from Antigua to the Mexican border, cover roughly twenty per cent of Guatemala. The population in the highlands is mostly indigenous, and people’s livelihoods are almost exclusively agrarian. The malnutrition rate, which hovers around sixty-five per cent, is among the highest in the Western Hemisphere. In 2014, a group of agronomists and scientists, working on an initiative called Climate, Nature, and Communities of Guatemala, produced a report that cautioned lawmakers about the region’s susceptibility to a new threat. [node:read-more:link]

If you walk through the dairy aisle, there's quite the variety: two percent, whole milk, almond, and soy milk. Those last two are now in question as the battle over what is considered "milk" is heating up. Louisiana State Senator Francis Thompson, D-Delhi, has introduced a bill that would remove the term "milk" from anything that is not dairy. For farmers like Mike Brian, it could help sagging profits. "We're in the middle of three years of extremely low prices and that's a nationwide thing," said Brian, owner of Feliciana's Best Creamery. [node:read-more:link]

The federal government sued California on over a water policy it said violates the state's environmental protection law. The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit in Sacramento federal court to block a contentious plan approved in December to increase river flows in the San Joaquin River and three tributaries to help revive dwindling salmon populations. It was part of a larger effort to protect the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which state officials called an "ecosystem in crisis." The delta supplies water for the majority of California's people and farms. [node:read-more:link]

Vermont veterinarians are hoping to formalize an unofficial sales and use tax exemption that has been applied to some veterinary supplies for 50 years.Veterinarians and their patients support the exemptions, which have been in place since 1969 relating to some human medical supplies and to some animals used in agriculture. Over the years, the exemptions came to be applied to a wide range of veterinary supplies used on all animals, companion or otherwise. [node:read-more:link]

Wisconsin groups and individuals have launched a grassroots push to urge Gov. Tony Evers and the Legislature to combat chronic wasting disease.Called the CWD Action Initiative, the effort is focused on protecting the health of Wisconsin’s wild deer and elk populations.  The drive was publicly unveiled in recent days. [node:read-more:link]

New York's Democrat-controlled legislature worked into the night Sunday to wrap up work on a new state budget that includes new tolls on motorists driving into the busiest parts of Manhattan and a statewide ban on plastic bags. The Senate and Assembly began voting on budget bills Sunday and hoped to finish their work on the $175.5 billion spending plan early Monday. [node:read-more:link]

Dow Chemical re-emerges this week as a standalone public company with its 1 April spin off from DowDuPont. The portfolio is narrower and management promises strong earnings growth and sharper discipline on cost and capital allocation. [node:read-more:link]

More than 400 nutria have been captured in the first year of an effort to eradicate the invasive South American rodent from California.The state Department of Fish and Wildlife said Monday the semi-aquatic rodents were trapped in five counties in the San Joaquin Valley.Nutria are an agricultural pest, destroy wetlands critical to native wildlife and threaten water delivery and flood control infrastructure through destructive burrowing.Nutria were imported in the early 1900s for the fur trade, but the market collapsed and the rodents escaped or were released. [node:read-more:link]